Tape Job keeps drive resources locked when no longer needed

[SSowa]

Support Case #04791288

We split up our backup jobs and stagger them throughout the night. After each job is run, we have secondary processing to copy the backup to tape

Our Tape Library has 2 drives. We have set up parallel processing on the media pools, and set the option for parallel processing in each job stream.

Here is where the problem lies... If a Copy to Tape job is running that will copy 2 servers to tape, each server backup gets assigned 1 tape drive. If 1 server finishes, the drive remains locked to the job, but that drive is also unused until the job fully completes.

If another job needs to write to tape, it cannot grab this now unused resource until the first job completes fully

Is there a way to have Veeam free up the drive resource when it is not needed?

What are the best practices to using 1 library for several copy to tape jobs? We don't want to slow down the copy to tape by limiting the number of drives available, we just want Veeam to recognize that the second drive is no longer needed for the first job and can allocate the drive to another job

[Dima P.]

Hello Scott,

Thanks for sharing the case, we will investigate this behavior with RnD folks. Can you please upload the logs to the case, looks like we got nothing to look at

[SSowa]

I have uploaded the logs of our tape proxy that experienced the issue a couple nights ago

[Dima P.]

Hello Scott,

We need full Veeam B&R log bundle (not only tape proxy logs). Support folks will get in touch with you to provide assistance in collecting the needed information. Stay tuned.

[SSowa]

I uploaded a full log.

To be clear, the previous log was the tape proxy and the backup and replication server. I was attempting to limit the amounts that would have to be culled through

[Dima P.]

Hello Scott,

@SSowa We've tried to confirm parallel processing the issue in the lab with latest v11 cp2 but no luck, folks were not able to indicate any signs of this issue via the logs as well. Can you please try to reproduce this behavior again (ideally with v11 plus latest cumulative patch installed)? In case you see the same behavior please note the time stamp, job name and devices in use (the screenshots will help too) and share all that with me. You can ping me directly via PM or via support team what works the best. Thank you in advance!

[agrob]

Good day,

I couldn’t find an option for this in the Library or Job configuration, so I’m submitting this feature request.

We have jobs configured to use two tape drives simultaneously. Initially, both drives are actively used for several hours. However, once only one source object remains, the job continues using just one drive, while the second drive remains blocked by the same job—even though it’s no longer needed.

My request is: please implement a feature that releases unused tape drives during job execution so that other tape jobs can utilize them.

Thank you!

[david.domask]

Hi agrob,

I've moved your post to an existing topic with a similar issue.

Have you already checked this behavior with Veeam Support? Please share your case number if so, else please open a Support case and let Veeam Support review the issue. Please be sure to include logs from the affected job(s) for Support to review. (use the 1st radio button to export logs from jobs, ctrl+click to select multiple jobs to export from)

As Dima noted above, behavior is not expected and from my own experience I don't recall such situations, so if you have not opened a support case already, please do so and share the case number.

Thanks!

[agrob]

Thanks David, just opened a Case: 07812591

[agrob]

Just got Feedback from Support:
With parallel processing enabled, Veeam Backup & Replication will still reserve (lock) all tape drives assigned to a job for the entire duration of that job session. This means that, once a tape job starts and uses multiple drives, those drives remain unavailable to other jobs—even if some of them are idle—until the original job finishes completely.

-> Can we raise a feature request to change this behaviour? A tape is blocked several hours which could be used for another job... And no, i will not further split jobs... thanks

[Dima P.]

Thanks for the heads up Andre! I'll double check as I believe we've fixed this behavior with the latest versions and the drive is being locked only when we processing the data.

[agrob]

Dima, we are using the latest v12 version. At least in this version, it doesn't seem to be fixed. Maybe in the upcoming v13...? Thanks anyway for checking.

[Dima P.]

Thank you! Asked QA team to take a look you case details and why the drives are locked, stay tuned!